~ Enjoying life in the face of a challenge

Monthly Archives: October 2016

There are three questions I get every time I explain my allergies/lactose intolerance to someone:

What DO you eat?

But does it taste good?

What do you cook for your husband?

The answer people seem to believe the least is: “Yeah, it tastes really good!” So I thought I’d share a quick video from Gordon Ramsay. In this video, he’s cooking for someone (Hannah) who can’t have gluten or dairy.*

Her not being quite ready to have red meat aside (which is perfectly understandable), the meal received a rave review from Hannah. “I can’t believe you can put so much different flavors and tastes just into coleslaw.” Just looking at the meal, my mouth was watering. I can’t wait to try my own version!

Having food restrictions doesn’t mean that your food is tasteless. It doesn’t mean you have to eat the same thing everyday. And it doesn’t mean that you’re stuck in an uncreative, small culinary box without an escape.

Having food restrictions means that you have to be adventurous with the ingredients you can have. It means you recognize that cooking is both an art and a science. And it means that you have infinite possibilities that develop with experience and experimentation.

Happy eating!

*Now, Hannah is a vegetarian and Chef Ramsay cooks her a steak. But he did respect the reasons she was a vegetarian and discuss whether or not she was okay with trying a steak ahead of time. As such, I see absolutely nothing wrong with serving her a steak.

I’m pretty open about my food challenges at work. To explain a little: food is a big part of the culture my workplace. Going out to eat to celebrate different events, bringing food in for every birthday and holiday, Friday night socials, you name it we have food for it. Needless to say, I often either bring along my own food or choose to just enjoy the company. Now, my workplace has been wonderful about my food challenges. They’ve made every effort when we go out to eat or bring in catering to make sure I can join in. They’ve worked with me every step of the way to figure out the best way to handle my food challenges.

So why what happened yesterday surprised me, I do not know. I was taking lunch in my office and there’s a knock on my door. I let them know to come in, and in walks our legal administrator (essentially one of my bosses). She hands me this pamphlet and says that she thought I would find it useful. It was a pamphlet for AllergyEats, a website (and also an app) dedicated to helping those with allergies and intolerances find safe restaurants to eat at.

First, I wanted to give a shout out to my place of work and, specifically, my legal administrator. Thank you! I know my food challenges are often hard to understand and accommodate, but you’ve been wonderful! Even if you don’t get it, you somehow get it. And for that I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I can’t thank you enough.

Second, if you have any food challenges, you should check out AllergyEats (https://www.allergyeats.com/). I’ve already tried its search function and can’t wait to eat at some of the new restaurants I’ve discovered in my area!

Third, AllergyEats is a peer-reviewed directory of restaurants, so please go on and rate your experiences to better aid our allergy community! The more reviews they have, the easier it will be for all of us to find delicious, accommodating places to eat.

For those of us with food allergies, Halloween can be a little difficult. So, I wanted to give a shout out to the Teal Pumpkin Project. One out of thirteen kids have food allergies. That’s potentially one out of thirteen kids that have trouble enjoying Halloween as candy is the most common treat. The Teal Pumpkin Project encourages making Halloween safe for these kids. That can be done by either adding a second bowl of non-food items (such as little toys, slinkies, stickers, etc.) or by eliminating the candy bowl all together. By putting out a teal pumpkin, you’re telling kids with allergies (and their parents) that you have allergy safe items to pass out on Halloween.

This is my version of a Thai Green Curry. It’s a little liquid-y, but it’s been a big hit with my husband and our friends! I always make some jasmine rice and serve both together in a bowl. It even reheats great!

It’s a special moment (at least to me) when a lactose-free blogger can post a recommendation for a pizza place. Nestled in historical downtown Anchorage, AK, the Fat Ptarmigan serves wood fire pizza and provides a vegan cheese (daiya) option. My husband and I split a whole pie! While I normally don’t managed to eat half a pizza, it was delicious and just great to order a pizza again!

We had built our own pizza, so our vegan cheese half black olive half reindeer sausage pizza was created. We felt that we had to try reindeer since we were in Alaska. It was good! Reminded me of kielbasa, actually. I stuck mainly to the black olive half of the pizza pie, though. The vegan cheese was perfectly melted and handled, and we had a wonderful experience there!

I wanted to give a special mention to our waitress. I had stressed my various allergies and my severe lactose intolerance to her before ordering. She was thoughtful, knowledgeable, and informative. And my husband later reported that while I was in the restroom she hovered over the chefs and stressed multiple times that they had to be careful not to cross-contaminate our food. I really appreciated her attention to my food challenges and going above and beyond to make sure I had a safe visit at the restaurant. I can’t say thank you enough for making my experience at the Fat Ptarmigan memorable for all the right reasons.